2022 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Neural mechanisms underlying the motivation to overcome disappointment
Project/Area Number |
20K16474
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Research Institution | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University |
Principal Investigator |
サポン ギデオン 沖縄科学技術大学院大学, 神経生物学研究ユニット, ポストドクトラルスカラー (00837198)
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Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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Keywords | dopamine / motivation |
Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In animal behavior, overcoming disappointments in foraging and courtship, which are often not immediately successful, are critical for survival. Despite these universal and important functions, the neural mechanisms underlying such motivation has not been addressed. This is because, traditionally, an animal behavior model that mimics such motivation has not been linked to a technique for monitoring neural activity in millisecond-order. To address this, we developed a novel rat behavioral task that strongly induces the motivation to overcome unexpected reward omission (disappointment). Dopamine neurons (DN) in the midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA) are one of the most important elements of the brain reward system, and have traditionally been thought to play a central role in controlling motivation for passive acceptance of omission of reward ("Reward prediction error" hypothesis). According to this hypothesis, DN activity should decrease when reward is unexpectedly omitted, which in fact has been supported by countless experiments. However, we hypothesized that VTA DN should be also important for the motivation to overcome unexpected omission of reward. Our study revealed that a subpopulation of DN in the VTA increased activity in response to unexpected omission of reward. By employing calcium imaging technique at single-cell resolution, it was possible to measure the calcium activity of many dopamine neurons simultaneously. Overall, this study clarified the central neural mechanisms responsible for overcoming the omission of reward.
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Research Products
(2 results)
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[Journal Article] Dopamine error signal to actively cope with lack of expected reward2023
Author(s)
Ishino S, Kamada T, Sarpong GA, Kitano J, Tsukasa R, Mukohira H, Sun F, Li Y, Kobayashi K, Naoki H, Oishi N, Ogawa M
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Journal Title
Science Advances
Volume: 9
Pages: 1-19
DOI
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